Higher-education leaders are worried about students’ dismal knowledge of and involvement in politics. Improving their participation in public life — without indoctrinating them — is the goal of a book released today by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: Educating for Democracy: Preparing Undergraduates for Responsible Political Engagement (Jossey-Bass).

The book cites recent studies showing, for example, that only about a third of college students think it’s important to keep up with political issues and events. Although that’s the highest proportion in more than a decade, it’s still “distressingly low,” says a summary of the book.

Its authors — Anne Colby and Thomas Ehrlich, senior scholars at the Carnegie Foundation; Elizabeth Beaumont, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota; and Josh Corngold, a doctoral student in education at Stanford University — offer five key strategies for promoting students’ political understanding through academic courses and other activities, like internships and campus speakers.

The book is based on the Carnegie Foundation’s Political Engagement Project, a study of 21 courses and programs at a diverse group of institutions that were designed to prepare students for democratic participation. The study found that political learning does not change party identification or political ideology.

“Education for political learning has to be unbiased, and it has to be really deeply committed to political openmindedness,” Ms. Colby said at a news conference this afternoon. “This is perfectly possible to do.”